A college for women was facilitated by the University of Sydney Senate's
decision, in 1881, to enable women to study “in complete equality with
men”.

In the decade that followed a committed group within the University
Senate agitated for the establishment of a college exclusively for women
students. The main members of this group were the Chancellor (William
Manning), the Vice-Chancellor (Henry MacLaurin) and two Professorial
Fellows of Senate (Walter Scott and Theodore Gurney). In the submission
put to the Government by Manning’s committee the new college was to have
the status of an affiliated college equal to that of the male colleges.
The Council of the College was to comprise twelve members of whom two
were to be members of the Senate of the University.

In 1889, a college for women was established and endowed by an Act of
the NSW Parliament.

The Women's College opened in 1892 with four students in a temporary
rented house called "Strathmore" in Glebe.

The Women's College in its own building within the University grounds
was officially opened on 5 May 1894. The building had been designed by
architects John Sulman and Joseph Porter Power to accommodate 26
students.

There have been subsequent building and refurbishment programs and, in
2005, the College was listed on the NSW State Heritage Register.

Today the College offers accommodation to 280 women students who are
studying at the University of Sydney.